Chief Executive says improvements have been made to Weston hospital
The inspection also raised immediate concerns with the quality of some children’s mental health services which had dropped in rating from outstanding to inadequate.
Some of the issues raised were high staff turnover and an increase in referrals which had meant delays in seeing people. This area has been a recent focus of a Healthwatch North Somerset study, where young people were asked about their ability to access mental health services in schools and colleges. The report, containing young people’s feelings and responses to local services and how they found them, will be published in Mid July.
The Staff did not always feel able to protect young people from avoidable harm because there was not enough of them to meet the demand on the service. There was a high staff turnover rate and staff had felt the impact of this on their workload. The service had received an increase in referrals that was putting strain on its ability to see young people quickly.
Inspectors visited the trust to check the quality of four core services: urgent and emergency services, medical care, and surgery, as well as CAMHS.
While the overall quality rating for Weston Hospital remains unchanged, inspectors noted clear progress in some areas since its previous inspection The trust is now rated as Good for being caring and effective, Requires Improvement for being safe, responsive and well-led.
CQC has also published the trust’s Use of Resources (UoR) report, which is based on an assessment undertaken by NHS Improvement. The trust has been rated as Inadequate for using its resources productively. The combined rating for the trust, taking into account CQC’s inspection for the quality of services and NHSI’s assessment of Use of Resources, is Requires Improvement.
James Rimmer, Chief executive of Weston Area Health NHS Trust said
I fully acknowledge that the CQC has identified areas in which we need to improve further. Work to address the issues identified, particularly in relation to our Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) has already started. Robust risk assessments are being carried out and many actions identified by the CQC have been completed. As with CAMHS services across the country, high levels of demand and difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff mean we cannot always see people as quickly as we would like. However, we have now made progress in recruiting more staff into our service and we have already seen a reduction in our waiting list.
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